As a a card-carrying member of the liberal media elite, going after one of my political brethren is painful. However, MSNBC and Keith Olbermann’s failure to disclose the lobbying ties of former Newsweek reporter Richard Wolffe is downright embarrassing.

In his diary on the liberal Daily Kos Web site, Olbermann wrote that the controversy around Wolffe caught him by surprise. Wolffe, a Brit who has written about American politics for years, is a regular on “Countdown with Keith Olberman,” and recently guest-hosted the show while Obermann was on vacation. However, in light of the Woffe scandal, Olbermann has announced that he will not allow Wolffe to return to the program until he and his producers can “clarify” the circumstances of his job with Public Strategies Inc., a well-known Texas-based PR firm.

“I must confess I was caught flat-footed,” Olbermann wrote. “I do not know what the truth is; my executive producer and I have spent the last two months dealing with other things … but what appears to be the truth here is certainly not what Richard told us about his non-news job. “